Posted on 01/18/2023 7:11:52 AM PST by Red Badger
A speaker at the World Economic Forum (WEF) held at Davos, Switzerland, said Tuesday that mining cobalt, a material vital for the batteries used by electric cars, had “horrific” costs.
“The question about mining is — we mine for cobalt and we don’t recognize that cobalt mining has a catastrophic impact if it’s — if it’s, you know, local cobalt mining or even if it’s large-scale cobalt mining, it’s really horrific,” Alan Dangour, the Wellcome Trust’s director for climate and health, said during a panel titled “Protecting the Climate Vulnerable.”
Cobalt is one of several metals and minerals critical for “green” energy sources, including electric vehicle batteries, according to a May 2021 report by the International Energy Agency. Cobalt mining by hand in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed or crippled many miners, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.
WATCH:
VIDEO AT LINK.......................
“There is now very nice evidence, in fact, on the impact it has on the health of women and children, especially it has substantial negative impact on fetal growth and fetal health. So — but that’s evidence that’s relatively new and relatively recently identified. So, the reason I’m saying this is there are trade-offs here,” Dangour said.
China produces about 60% of the cobalt for the world market, and at least 50% of the refining for that metal, the IEA reported in 2021.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued new regulations on vehicle emissions in December 2021 that could force many gasoline-powered vehicles off the country’s roads. President Joe Biden announced plans to ensure that 50% of new vehicles sold in 2030 are electric, while also seeking to have the federal government only purchase electric vehicles by 2035.
“So, you could go down the line and cobalt mine and move the community out, and that would be horrific and there would be all sorts of problems, of course, but without that data you can’t — you know, understanding the broader impact of what we’re trying to achieve, understanding biodiversity impacts, understanding health impacts, bringing all of that evidence together, it’s very difficult to make the right choice,” Dangour added.
Exactly. EVs are just the means to end personal transportation.
The eco-freaks and Global Ruling Class don’t want everybody driving “electric cars”.
They want NOBODY driving at all.
Except, of course, for their chauffeurs ...
You will own nothing, live in a rented cell in a hive, eat bugs, and be miserable. Siddown and shaddap, peon!
It's pyschotic. They will never stop screaming about how rotten other people are for just being alive because everything they use is unclean to their puritan minds. Why anyone listens to what should be a fringe cult is beyond me but somehow they are succeeding at tearing down civilization.
The people who promote them are just tools of the Globalist Ruling Class. If they're not getting a regular paycheck from Klaus and George, they're getting ripped off.
If you do the research on the cobalt mining in the Congo you will quickly see that there is a serious environmental concern given the impact it has had on that region and some of the poorest people on the planet.
Birth defects, cancer, decreased lifespan, toxic drinking water, no fish, impact on animal life, etc etc.
To use their term, the “ESG” score is very bad.
There are also major issues in the Lithium Triangle, the region in South America where a lot of lithium we use is mined.
The Chinese are knee-deep in this and the virtue signalling left in the West simply ignores the entire problem as they mandate that we adopt this technology for transportation.
These things are the new “blood diamonds”. We are poisoning these people and this meets the definition of child slave labor. Their drinking water contains heavy metals. What are they to eat when all the fish and animals are dead or poisoned from the water? Those in the mines and downstream are being poisoned.
Why do we do this? It is horrible. Video from an interview that Joe Rogan did (I give him credit - he covers things others will not touch).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIWvk3gJ_7E
For those who prefer to read about this (with pictures) -
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-24/cobalt-mining-in-the-congo-green-energy/100802588
“There is now very nice evidence, in fact, on the impact it has on the health of women and children, especially it has substantial negative impact on fetal growth and fetal health.”
Sounds as if their only choice is to get people into buses.
Kids in my neighborhood are now riding electric bicycles and those electric skateboards..................
.... or cattle cars..................
It is a lot worse than that: They have forced closures of coal burning plants by the droves.
The difference between “virtue signaling” and “vice signaling” is propaganda.
Those who control the mass media rule—everybody else drools.
DAVOS
D - Deviant
A - amoral
V - Vile
O - Obnoxious
S - Sanctimonious
The energy density (power verses weight) of gasoline is about 100 times greater than a lithium-ion battery. However, the electric motor of those cars is far more efficient than the gasoline engine. Thus energy density of gasoline verses a lithium-ion battery is about 33 in relationship to usable power. That is actually a horrible number.
25 gallons of gasoline in my Ram 1500 weighs about 150 lbs. To get the same amount of usable power from lithium-ion batteries would require about 5000 lbs of batteries.
Current technology precludes the widespread use of electric vehicles. They suck.
Good points.
Communists give and fix things to show how nice they are.
Yes, lefties think that they will “go green” but still have all their modern conveniences, just running on windmills, solar panels and unicorn farts.
But in reality, the people in charge know that won’t actually work. It’s just a fairy tale to sell the masses, just like the “communist utopia” was a fairy tale. They just want more power, and once the lefties give it to them, then they can do what they want with it, and nobody will be able to do anything about the broken promises.
There is now very nice evidence, in fact, on the impact it has on the health of women and children,
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Especially since they are the primary miners of said cobalt.
There was some graphic I saw recently that showed the primary source of electric power in South Dakota was wind? LOL. I can’t imagine that to be true.
Of course its a VERY important question. And now that the enviro whacky left is turning against EVs changes things. Long term is the question of how oil companies will make the transition from oil to powering EVs. Are we getting ahead of ourselves assuming its RIP for gasoline vehicles?
Our military runs on what?? Windmills?? Solar roofs on tanks??
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